Page 5 of A Winter in Wonderland
I looked back at the brochure. ‘I can’t do this, Shay. Thanks for your help, but I’ll find another way. This wouldn’t be good for me.’
‘Maybe it could be.’
‘Stop forcing it, please. Thank you, and everything, but I can’t even commit to working down the road planning a Christmas party. You know I can’t commit to this.’
‘So what are you going to do? Go home and live with Dad?’
‘No, I’ll just get another job. Find another house. It might take a minute but I can do it.’
‘And then something will happen in that job, like they’ll ask you to help decorate the Christmas tree, and you’ll run away again,’ Shay countered.
‘No, I won’t. I’ll stay if I have to – I just didn’t realise this last job was a make or break for the agency.’
‘All right, listen,’ Shay said. ‘You came to me because you need help and I want to help you out. How about this for an idea, sister. How about we make a bet?’
‘What kind of a bet?’ I asked, intrigued.
‘I bet you can’t make it through twenty-four hours without complaining about Christmas, without so much as leaving the room at the sound of a Christmas song.’
I snorted. ‘I bet I can’t either, so I shall not be taking this bet.’
Shay smiled, slowly, Cheshire Cat-style. ‘I think you’ll take the bet. If you win, if you make it through that timewithout complaining, I will pay for your flights to take you away somewhere over Christmas. Wherever you want to go. Within reason.’
‘I couldn’t let you do that—’ I started to protest. ‘What, for the whole of Christmas?’
‘For whatever amount of time this imaginary job you’re going to go and get, and stay in, will let you take off work. You can go somewhere sunny. Somewhere without even a flake of snow.’
I stared at her. ‘Somewhere where I wouldn’t have to think about Christmas?’
‘Somewhere you wouldn’t even have tothink,’ she soothed, and in my mind I was already there, on a sun lounger, with a pina colada in each hand.
‘And if I lose?’
‘If you lose, ifIwin, you have to take this job.’
I gulped. ‘Thisjob? In Lapland?’
‘And you have to enjoy it, and be a part of it, and jingle those bells like your life depends on it, because it would, because I will kill you if you mess it up, and I won’t ever let you meet your new niece or nephew.’
‘Well now, that’s a little unfair,’ I grumbled. ‘Why would you even want to put me forward for this if you have so little faith in me being able to make it through anything Christmassy?’
‘Because I know if your hand is forced, which I would be doing, you wouldn’t let me down.’ Shay gave me a hard stare. ‘And I think this could get your Christmas mojo back.’
Staring back at her, I ate another of her jelly babies,my mind processing. Twenty-four hours. Maybe that was doable, after all. Of course it was. ‘This is going to be so easy. You might as well just give me the money now. I’m thinking somewhere really long-haul.’
‘Oh, sister dear,’ Shay said, shaking her head. ‘I won’t be giving you any money. I have a baby on the way. Don’t go tricking yourself that I’m going to make this easy.’
